Our MBRS program is designed to provide basic research opportunities for faculty, strengthen the research and research-training capabilities of our institution, and provide opportunities for our undergraduate students to participate in meaningful biomedical research by doing mini-projects that contribute to the specific aims of the particular investigator whom they assist. The research proposed by current MBRS investigators represents logical progressions toward their overall goals. Dr. Bennett has been able to clearly separate gastric mucin into gel and sol phases. Such phases consist of sub-units which he now proposes to characterize. He will identify the amino acid sequence of the individual sub-units and then define their reaggregation properties. Dr. Adams will add to new knowledge by expanding the types of social stress he has shown to adversely affect the cardiovascular system in males. Of singular importance, he will also begin investigating the effect of different normal stresses in the female on the cardiovascular system. Dr. Heller will expand his studies on tactile perception in the congenital and newly blind subjects. He will extend his investigations to include subjects with parietal neurological lesions. Dr. Tan will build on his successes in investigating the genes of A. niger that code for alpha-glucosidase, glucoamylase and glucose oxidase, and define the regulation and expression of these genes. Dr. Stackhouse will extend work done for his Ph.D. degree to the genomic analysis of a HLA-DR2-like cell.